So I was stood up by the other members of the Sparkbox Show this year and ended up going to the NYIAS this year alone, until I decided to bring Cerberus and his brother at the last minute that is.  Neither of which are very interested in cars, but at least it made the ride  to and from NYC a little more interesting.

I went this past Saturday, which was the second weekend it was open.  I think that it cut down on the crowd considerably.  It was still a madhouse, but this year I was able to take some pictures without screaming kids and fat bald guy’s heads in the frame.  Although I did have my shiny new Canon with me, so maybe when you have a nice big professional looking camera, you get a little more respect when you are taking pictures than the guys with the iPhones?

When I first walked in I noticed that Cadillac had given up it’s prime entrance location to sit in the far back corner of the show, probably because they hadn’t been up to much this year.  They were replaced by Ford, which was very innovative in the fact that they were giving away a lot of swag, from t-shirts to $50 cash vouchers that you could turn in when test driving a Ford in order to get – that’s right – $50 cash.

Toyota kept their prime location at the other entrance and were giving out wonderful reusable bags for you to put all your pamphlets and poster in.  I’m sure in a few days they unfortunately will be in 100 landfills across the country.  Speaking of swag, I was very impressed this year.  Last year it seemed the economy had really inhibited the giveaways at the NYIAS.  This year they went all out, almost every company had booklets and posters with information about their 2010 lineup to give away.  Some even went as far as to give away folding wooden rulers (Jeep), tshirts (Ford), Keychains and stickers and CD’s (Scion).  Thanks guys!

Every year there is some kind of trend.  Last year it was Fuel cells and in dash multimedia units like Ford’s SYNC.  Some of the higher end cars were sporting turn stabilizing traction control similar to the one BMW has had for a while now, where power is distributed to the outside wheels in a turn to help your vehicle turn with more confidence.  Another was the radar and other sensors in the front of the vehicle to autostop for those of you who like to txt message while in traffic.  BUT mostly this year’s was little cars a bit larger than a smart car that emulated the Scion xB.  Nissan has one coming out called the Cube and Mitsubishi has one they are trying to get safety approved for use in North America.  I know GM has a couple ghost “xB’s”  in the closet in waiting as well.  Get ready for the tiny car movement in America soon ladies and gentlemen, it’s going to look like you are walking around london very soon.  Hopefully we wont have to start driving on the other side of the road any time soon.

Every year there are a few crowd favorites and some “displeasers”.  This year’s favorite car showcase was a tossup between Smartcar and BMW.  BMW always brings a crowd of people that want to be Autobann driving someday, but I was a little surprised by Smartcar.  You couldn’t even sit in one unless you wanted to wait your turn for at least 15 minutes.  Thats pretty amazing if you ask me.  One unfortunate trend this year was to make your companies’ showcase look like the Apple Store.  Of course Porsche, Volvo, and Subaru followed this suit, but surprisingly so did VW!  They weren’t the bad boys of the auto show this year.  This year they were upstairs next to their big brother Audi and super clean and straight forward, not a rebellious display anywhere.  The most disappointing showcase this year was a tossup between Chevy and Subaru.  Although if I had to choose the very worst display I would have to go with Subaru.  They have great cars, that all have the same front, and they decided that it was a good idea for some reason to have almost every car on display be white, adding to the sheer boredom.  Even worse, I sat in a lot of cars while I was there and I can honestly say that Subaru was in the top 3 for uncomfortable seats.

So what were my favorite and least favorite cars at the show this year?  The best looking car there had to be a super modified Mercedes roadster of some kind they were showcasing.  It looked like a “Naboo Royal Cruiser” for the road.  Super Awesome.

If you want to know which car I am buying next when I have mine payed off based on the auto show, it’s a tossup between 3 cars: there was and awesome Nissan roadster convertible there, the BMW 1 series was super amazing in styling and features, and last but by no means least, the most impressive car there for me was the Kia Soul.  The Soul comes in many colors and options packages putting it almost on par with a Scion.  The interior layout and seat quality and comfortability was far beyond my expectations.  It even impressed Cerberus (a leggy fellow)  when he sat in the back because he was almost uninhibited for leg room! (although he was also very impressed with the leg room in the BMW 3 series as well.)  Kia also has another promising car they were showing off there called the Forte, but since we couldn’t sit in it or anything, I really cant tell you much except that it looked like where the Ford Fusion should have headed.

I know most of you just want to look at the pictures that I took, so without further ado:  ENJOY THE PICTURE GALLERY!

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This entry was posted by Andy on Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009 at 10:59 pm and is filed under Community, Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.